Cooking oil

JeffreyL

Member
I've been researching trying to figure out what people use most often to cook with in cast iron, and all I can really find is oil that's best for seasoning, but not for cooking. My wife wants to get one of those oil bottles with the spouts on it to leave by the stove, just trying to figure out what to put in it. We use vegetable oil a lot right now, we tried safflower oil and didn't like it
 
Mainly an "extra light" olive oil, or for higher temps like searing meat or stir fry, peanut oil.
 
I have been away for a long time but I am getting back into the swing of things.
I cook my eggs differently depending on how I am cooking them. When I do an omelet, I use coconut oil because it adds to the flavor.
When cooking over easy eggs for my wife, who is very picky I spray with olive oil and use a medium heat and before I put my egg in I put in some butter so that the two different oils will make the egg slip and slid.
For high heat use I use peanut oil.

It is good to be back.
Kevin
 
I'm always flip-flopping between canola and olive, but I keep olive in the bottle with the spout since I use it for other things besides frying.
 
We use canola 99% of the time, but use olive oil if a recipe calls for it. Keep the canola next to the stove in this little covered creamer we picked up some where.

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I've got a whole bunch of different oils sitting in my pantry. These days they mostly just sit there.

The ones that stay by the stove and actually get used most every day are canola and olive. Butter would be #3. I fry in canola.

I do keep a high-end extra virgin olive oil handy but only use it for dressings or adding to cooked foods, not for actual cooking.
 
Thank you for the replies, with keeping all that in mind, we are trying to get rid of all of our nonstick. So I just purchased a set of Cuisinart MultiClad Pro SS cookware. So we will either be cooking in CI or SS. which of the recommended oils would also work good in the SS? Trying to be healthier and "cleaner"
 
We use canola mostly. Olive oil if the recipe calls for it. Butter to fry eggs, scramble eggs, pancakes (sometimes PAM for pancakes), and cornbread (unless the cornbread is going in a corn stick pan or snowman mold, then we use PAM).
 
Thank you for the replies, with keeping all that in mind, we are trying to get rid of all of our nonstick. So I just purchased a set of Cuisinart MultiClad Pro SS cookware. So we will either be cooking in CI or SS. which of the recommended oils would also work good in the SS? Trying to be healthier and "cleaner"

Congrats on the purchase. Hope you enjoy them.

Your choice of cookware material doesn't matter when it comes to choosing oils. Primary considerations for oils are its smoking temp (to avoid using an oil not appropriate for the level of heat you're cooking with) and flavor (neutral oils like canola add little to no flavor while sometimes the added flavor of olive oil, etc, is desirable).

From a health perspective, oils high in unsaturated fats are better. Both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated are good, though monounsaturated are the better of the two.
 
Thanks guys! We've started cooking a lot in CI, everything else will now be SS, and we just had a gas line run and bought a new gas oven and got rid of the electric. I feel like such a rookie in the kitchen now with so many changes!
 
My hubby is the picky type, so I've started using mostly grapeseed oil (neutral taste), olive oil (for flavor), and butter for things at relatively low temps. Unsalted butter is good to use for cooking, I think, because you can control the addition of salt. (And yes, there are only the 2 of us, and most of my money goes for quality food.) I really like Kevin's creamer for oil--looks nice, and I bet it cuts down the messiness as well.
 
So I just spent most of the evening researching oils :shootself:
If I read 20 different articles I got 50 different opinions. One place says canola is nasty stuff and bad for you, the next place, including webmd, says it's a top 3 choice for cooking. Another site says extra virgin olive oil is good for cooking, next site says no good as it breaks down at lower temps, only use to sauté veggies, and make dressings. but two things I did learn from all the reading, the "pure" olive oil I have in the cupboard in the clear plastic bottle is probably not so "pure", and that the vegetable oil I have been frying fish in which is made of soybean oil should have killed me by now and should be avoided :confused:
 
So I just spent most of the evening researching oils :shootself:
If I read 20 different articles I got 50 different opinions. One place says canola is nasty stuff and bad for you, the next place, including webmd, says it's a top 3 choice for cooking. Another site says extra virgin olive oil is good for cooking, next site says no good as it breaks down at lower temps, only use to sauté veggies, and make dressings. but two things I did learn from all the reading, the "pure" olive oil I have in the cupboard in the clear plastic bottle is probably not so "pure", and that the vegetable oil I have been frying fish in which is made of soybean oil should have killed me by now and should be avoided :confused:

That's the beauty of the information age. In the old days we had limited access to information and relied a lot on word of mouth, which was rife with misinformation. These days, with a few clicks we have access to piles of information about anything, written by experts and idiots alike, and which is rife with misinformation. Critical thinking skills never become obsolete...

Really, you're over-complicating it. In health and cooking there is a constant parade of fads and trends, and most are just wallet-draining novelties. There is no magic oil that clearly stands out above the rest, nor one that is clearly death in a bottle. Just find one high in unsaturated fats that you like and you'll be fine.

Regarding olive oil specifically, it is true that many of the budget brands imported in a mixed bulk from multiple overseas sources have been found to be adulterated with other vegetable oils. Really it's nothing to worry about, it's not unhealthy, it's just not pure olive oil.

If you want confidence that you're actually getting 100% olive oil as advertised without breaking the bank, I suggest you check out olive oil from California. It's a burgeoning industry over there and they're trying to build a reputation that can compete with the established European industry, and as a result extra attention is being paid to ensure purity and quality. A brand called California Olive Ranch is easy to find, affordable, and works great as an everyday cooking oil, when olive oil is desired.
 
EricC-

As with anything, I tend to over-analyze. Thats the mechanic in me along with a healthy dose of OCD.

Maybe I should have better stated it as to the type of cooking we usually do. My main job is frying fish. For that I probably want a higher smoke point oil, olive oil probably not good for this?

After that we usually use butter for eggs, and when I make cornbread and bake anything i usually use crisco or whatever the recipe calls for.

I do occasionally fry venison steaks and venison heart. Havnt tried fried chicken yet but i really want to.
 
EricC-

As with anything, I tend to over-analyze. Thats the mechanic in me along with a healthy dose of OCD.

Maybe I should have better stated it as to the type of cooking we usually do. My main job is frying fish. For that I probably want a higher smoke point oil, olive oil probably not good for this?

After that we usually use butter for eggs, and when I make cornbread and bake anything i usually use crisco or whatever the recipe calls for.

I do occasionally fry venison steaks and venison heart. Havnt tried fried chicken yet but i really want to.

I assume you mean deep frying battered fish filets? With a target frying oil temp of around 365, you actually could fry fish with olive oil if you wanted to. But I would not, because it would add too much olive oil flavor. Instead the neutral flavor of canola would be my choice. Same would go for fried chicken.

If you mean sauteing fish filets that are merely seasoned or maybe dredged in a light coating of flour, yes you could use olive oil. Or canola. Personally I prefer butter for that specific situation, with a little olive or canola mixed in to help stabilize it.

Venison, you mean you sear / saute it, like you would cook a steak? Again yes, you could use olive oil. Or canola.

Olive oil is also good for sauteing boneless chicken pieces, especially when paired with Italian seasonings. Vegetables, either sauteed or oven roasted, do well with olive oil too.
 
EricC-

I dont deep fry my fish, i dredge damp fillets in a seasoned cornmeal coating and fry in about 1/8" of oil. I do venison steaks the same way.

Venison heart i do lower and slower, probably this would be called sauteing(im a mechanic not a chef) and i do that with butter
 
EricC-

I dont deep fry my fish, i dredge damp fillets in a seasoned cornmeal coating and fry in about 1/8" of oil. I do venison steaks the same way.

Venison heart i do lower and slower, probably this would be called sauteing(im a mechanic not a chef) and i do that with butter

Canola is a better pairing with seasoned cornmeal than olive oil is, again from a flavor perspective.
 
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